Our bouquet for Yuri Gagarin

I am so pleased to read (Gagarin back in UK, 50 years on, 15 July) that a statue has been raised to this great historic figure in the capital. It is easy to forget now quite what an impact his pioneering journey into space had around the world. I was a 12-year-old schoolgirl at the time he visited the UK in July 1961 and not only witnessed the excitement of fellow Londoners during his visit, but managed to get to meet him. A friend and I played truant from school on the day that he arrived (11 July) and decided to go to the Russian embassy to welcome him. We bought a beautiful bouquet of flowers and pinned to it a note in rudimentary Russian – which we had recently started studying – expressing our admiration.

We hoped to be able to give this in at the embassy, where there were crowds and many press photographers. We cheered as Gagarin drove up and waved to him as he stood at the top of the steps. There was such a scrum our flowers were in danger of getting crushed, so we held them above our heads. Photographers yelled at us to move. A lady came over and asked us who the flowers were for, and we said "Mr Gagarin". He was inside the embassy by now; she took us up to the entrance, knocked on the door and spoke in Russian to the man who answered. To our surprise, we were ushered inside, where we waited in the grand hall beneath portraits of Krushchev and Lenin. Then Yuri Gagarin was brought out to meet us – somebody translated our greetings, we presented the flowers, shook his hand and we were photographed together (for a Russian newspaper, I think). We felt deeply honoured. It was one of the great moments of my life.